


The Rest of Me

by livenudebigfoot



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, Hallucinations, Murder, Reality Bending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/pseuds/livenudebigfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Prompt: Fusco is the only one who can see (scary, stalker) Reese.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rest of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Ooops I accidentally wrote Fight Club fusion fic or something.

There's someone in the back seat of his car. Fusco can't remember putting him there. In the rearview, Fusco can see only the fringe of his graying hair, the slope of a dark eyebrow, an unforgiving eye.

"Hello, Lionel," he says in a voice that's rough-smooth like rocks at the bottom of a river. "How are you?"

The deep breath Fusco takes is subsumed, near-inaudible. It's better if he doesn't hear. "Okay, buddy," he says. "You're in the wrong car. I'm gonna give you five seconds to go back where you came from. After that, you got trouble."

"No," the stranger says. "This is the right car."

He falls terribly silent. His head tilts in the mirror, showing more of the clear forehead, the edge of a straight nose, the ridge of a cheekbone. Maybe he is just listening to the quickening of Fusco's breath, the street sounds outside, the sound of the idling engine, and the little sounds, sub-sounds, of Fusco slowly shifting to grab his holster.

"Lionel, I need you to do some work for me," he continues.

His laugh is rough, high-pitched, forced through a tightening chest. "I don't need to do shit for you," he says as his hand sneaks into his jacket and closes around the grip of his gun.

The stranger's hand closes around the grip of Fusco's throat.

And he struggles, of course he struggles, but even as he's doing it, tearing at the stranger's fingers and striking at him with the gun and trying to figure out how best to fire it blind and twisted backwards, it all seems really silly. Futile.

The stranger seems to think so too as he seizes Fusco's wrist and directs it, putting his big, long-fingered hand around Fusco's so the gun is pressed just beneath his cheekbone, so their fingers idle together on the trigger.

He can feel the bullet's potential trajectory like a dotted line running diagonal through his head. The bullet will enter through your cheek. It will leave a good-sized hole. The bullet will exit through the back of your skull near the top, blow it out like confetti. You will not want someone you loved to help identify your corpse. Though this, of course, is always true.

"Calm down, Lionel." He screws the muzzle of the gun into the flesh of his cheek, twisting, twisting. "Let's talk this through."

 

* * *

 

Carter asks him, "Do you have that file on Lawrence Pope?" and he answers, "Yeah," without thinking.

A little checking reveals that, yes, he does have that file. It's sitting on the edge of his desk like it belongs there. He guesses it's not so odd. He testified in that case just the other day.

He committed perjury for that case just the other day.

Carter is holding out her hand to him, expectantly, and he snaps out of it, gives the file over.

"You okay?" she asks as she returns to her desk. "You've been kinda out of it today."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, sorry. Not enough sleep last night, I guess. Although, what else is new?"

She nods solemnly (I hear that) and tells him, "Get yourself some caffeine. We have work to do."

"Right."

His laugh is low and sickly.

The stranger catches him by the coffee pot, slings one arm across Fusco's shoulders as he pours. "Is that case giving you trouble, Lionel?"

"Back off," he mutters.

He feels the jab of a gun's muzzle low against his gut. "No," the stranger says, very pleasantly. "Is it difficult to lie to her about things like this? Knowing what you know about Lawrence Pope?" The stranger's breath brushes by his ear. "You're thinking of killing his brother."

Fusco pours scalding black coffee into a styrofoam cup. "I don't know what you think you know, but -"

"Stop trying to bluff. I know."

Fusco tries to keep occupied, pours too much sugar in with his coffee, stirs compulsively. "So what do you want?" he asks. "What do you want to keep quiet?"

"I told you," says the stranger. "I want you to do a little work for me. Just do what I told you to do in the car. And this can all go away."

"I can't remember what you told me in the car."

The stranger taps him once, on the forehead, between the eyes. "It'll come to you."

 

* * *

 

Diane Hansen's finger jabs hard in the center of his chest, right up against his breastbone and she's telling him something. Probably in that rough, emphatic whisper she uses instead of shouting. He's not sure. He can't tell. His hearing is fading in and out, like the sound on a shitty old radio. Static, with bursts of clarity.

"I can't b - ffssssfsssssssssss - weak fucking testimony - ssssssssssssshhhhkK - costing us - KkKkfffffshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - do you understand?"

He nods solemnly, steps back so that his shoulder brushes against Stills' chest. He didn't even know Stills was there. As they pull away, turn away from Diane Hansen, Stills' hand falls hard at the base of his neck. "You okay?" he asks, pinching gently at his spine.

"Uh huh."

"You sick or something?"

"Just tired."

"I know you always said you never wanted to do a kid."

"He's not a kid," Fusco says. "He's almost an adult." But there's sickness coiling deep in his chest.

"Almost an adult is still a kid," Stills says.

"Yeah." Fusco looks up, blinks at him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Can't say that I'll answer it."

"We haven't done the kid yet, have we?"

Stills brow furrows. "No," he says. "No, we haven't done the kid yet."

"Okay. Makes sense. Guess I would have remembered that."

"Guess so." Stills is freaked out, really worried-looking. "Lionel, you wanna take the night off?"

Fusco rubs the back of his hand across his eyes.

"I mean it," he says. "Go home; get some sleep. I want backup, but I don't need you like this."

"No." Fusco shakes his head. "No, I'm good. I'm okay. Really," he says in the face of Stills' skepticism, "I feel more like myself right now."

 

* * *

 

The glow of oncoming headlights bring the blood on Fusco's wrist into sharp relief and he nearly swerves.

"Easy, Lionel." The stranger is sitting in the passenger's seat. "Relax."

"Where the fuck am I?"

"We're just taking a drive." The stranger reclines his seat, slightly. "You know where to go."

He does. He's driven on this road before. Mostly, he just comes out here to do one thing and one thing only.

He glances in the rearview mirror. There's a crying teenager in the back seat.

"Relax, Lionel," says the stranger. "We're almost there."

 

* * *

 

No time to dig the full six feet. There's never enough time.

He thinks he'd feel more secure if he could dig deep down and far away, hide the bodies in the beating heart of the earth or dig a hole straight through the world, drop the corpses through and let the Chinese sort it out.

"But there's never enough time," the stranger says, crouching down to peer at him. "It's alright, Lionel. Just a few feet will do. No one ever comes out here. You know that."

"It never feels like enough," he tells the stranger.

"But it will be," he says. "People don't look so closely. And not everybody wants to see."

This is true. Fusco pulls himself out of the hole, feels dark, wet earth wriggle deep beneath his fingernails and tumble down the sides of the hole in little clumps. The stranger pulls him to his feet and they walk, side by side, back to the car.

The kid's still in the back seat, asleep, head pillowed on a jacket. Fusco can see through the dark windows and he can see that the kid's not wearing any cuffs.

The stranger ignores him, goes and pops the trunk instead.

Stills lies pale and limp like a ragdoll. The power in his forearms has relaxed to fleshy, soft emptiness beneath the sleeves of his leather jacket. His face is relaxed but not peaceful. The jaw dangles.

"Well?" asks the stranger. "Are you going to put him away or not?"

Fusco doesn't move. "Did I kill him?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," he says. His voice comes out tight and wretched. "Yes, it matters!"

"If you say so," the stranger says with a shrug. "No. I killed him." He rolls his shoulders lazily. "But you let me borrow your gun to do it."

Fusco lunges at him, seizes the crisp collar of the stranger's shirt in one hand and wrenches him down, nose to nose. His other hand scrabbles for his gun. It's in the holster, where it belongs. He took it back. He shoves the muzzle up under the stranger's chin.

"You son of a bitch." He's surprised to hear his voice all choked up with what sounds like tears. "You son of a bitch, why'd you do it?"

"Because," he says, speaking against the gun's push, "it had to be done. He was going to kill that kid."

"Me too," Fusco says. "I was too."

"No," says the stranger. He takes Fusco's bloody wrist and guides it gently downward, guides the gun away from his face. "You really weren't."

Fusco lets his arm be lowered. He tucks the gun back in its holster. He brushes at the sleeves of his jacket. He cradles Stills' head against the crook of his arm and pulls so he's hanging out of the trunk and from there he slides his arms under Stills', locked tight around his chest, and he drags.

The stranger bends to take Stills' feet and Fusco snarls at him, "Fuck off."

The stranger stands.

Fusco takes steps back, watches the trails Stills' heels leave in the dirt. He watches the tears that drip off his cheeks and the tip of his nose hit Stills' black jacket with a soft, nearly nonexistent patter. He backs up until they slip and fall into the grave together, him and Stills, and they lie together a while, shoulders overlapping.

After a while, the stranger comes to peer over the edge at them,

After a while, he offers a hand and Fusco takes it.

"Would you like to say a few words?" the stranger asks as he brushes clods of earth off of Fusco's jacket and hair and face.

"No," he says.

"Do you want to be alone with him a while?"

"No."

"You loved him," the stranger says. "He was your friend, Lionel."

"I can't," he says. He sounds pathetic but he can't. He can't be alone with that.

The stranger seems to understand. "Get in the car." He cracks his knuckles. "I'll finish this."

He doesn't say thank you. He gets into the car and speeds away and in the red glow of the lights he watches the stranger fade.

The kid groans and sits up, rubbing his eyes. "You did it?"

"Yeah," Fusco tells him. "Yeah, I did it. Try not to pay too much attention to where we are, okay?"

"Okay. I could go back to sleep."

"Sounds good."

"Where are we going now?"

"Don't know. Home?"

The kid blinks. "Don't have one. Not without my brother."

Right. Fusco thinks a moment. "You wanna talk to the cops?"

"You are the cops," he says.

Right. "Other cops," he says. "Good cops."

"You are a good cop. Maybe not all the time, but you saved me, right?"

"Nah," Fusco says. "You're thinking of the other guy."

In the rearview, he can see the kid frown.

 

* * *

 

The stranger passes him a beer from across the table and he accepts it, numbly. "He's safe," Fusco tells him. "I guess that's what you wanted to know."

"That's part of it," the stranger says. "How are you?"

"Not good," Fusco says with a hollow chuckle. "Not, uh, not good at all."

"You miss him."

"Yeah." He rubs at his temples.

"He led you astray."

"Yeah," Fusco repeats, "yeah, but I still miss him."

"I understand," the stranger says. His intonation is flat. He may only be saying that.

"I killed him," Fusco says. "I did, didn't I? You, uh, you weren't there."

"I'm always here," the stranger says, affronted. "And you didn't kill him. I did. I just..." he twists a hand. "I just borrowed your gun."

"You keep saying that," Fusco says. "I don't think it's true."

"Did you want to kill him?"

"No."

"But you think you did."

"Yes."

"I see." The stranger shifts in his seat. "We have more work to do tomorrow."

"What?"

"Lot of bad people out there. Somebody's gotta get rid of them."

"It's not my place."

"Who's place is it, Lionel?"

Fusco falls quiet.

"What're you going to do otherwise? Come crawling back to HR?"

"No."

"Try to live a normal life? Just take it one day at a time?" He bends close. "As if that can make up for what you've done."

Fusco keeps his eyes shut and his head down. He feels the stranger's hand fall soft on the back of his head.

"It won't hurt as much this time," he says kindly. "You don't love them like you loved him."

Fusco says, "I think I'm going crazy. I think I need a doctor."

The stranger says, "You're sane. For the first time, you're sane."

Fusco fumbles for his phone.

 

* * *

 

Fusco blinks in the sun.

He's standing in a marshland, shoes squishing deep in the mud. His gun bounces eagerly against the temple of a man kneeling at his feet, cringing.

"Well?" asks the stranger. "What'll it be, Lionel?"

He guesses he never got in touch with that doctor.


End file.
